


Tre Giorni

by orphan_account



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Drama, First Kiss, Hypocrisy, Kinda, Slow Burn, artistic liberties : law, artistic liberties with powers, more tags will be added as story progresses, nico hates the infirmary, photokinesis, three days fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-04-10 21:16:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4407980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico really doesn't like the infirmary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Camp Half-Blood does "Scrubs"

**Author's Note:**

> My obligatory three days fic. Apologies if you don't like British spelling.

When Nico got back to Will, he started to realise just what he’d gotten himself into.

Will Solace talked _incessantly_. And was very distracting.  

Nico’s eyes drifted to Will’s face as they walked. He couldn’t help it, really— the boy was like an art piece. Nico had never seen someone with eyes so intensely _blue_. Will’s hair was scraped back into a rushed ponytail, a few ringlets springing free. It was awkward to describe him as "exotic," but Nico couldn't find any other words for him. Will had braces, he noticed. There were little flashes of metal and bright blue rubber bands as he spoke. It was a little funny— Will was at least six inches taller than Nico and had his father's godly bone structure, so the braces looked ridiculous in contrast.

Will glanced his way and Nico took a sudden interest in the ground. It was rude to stare, but it was hard not to.

Will snapped his fingers in front of Nico's face.

"What?" Nico asked.

" _Please_ listen to me," Will insisted, "I have a lot of explanation to do in very little time, and you're basically a walking medical emergency, so it is very very very important that you pay attention."

 

Almost out of guilt, Nico listened. They’d certainly gotten off to a great start.

"You're going to get a standard exam so we can fill out all the paperwork,” Will said. “I don’t think there’s been another case like yours, at least not in living memory, so there’ll be a lot of tests for that. You’re definitely going to be on some kind of light therapy, probably infusion since that’s usually the least risky…”

As they walked, Nico’s attention began to wander again. There was something in the way Will moved— a rhythm to his footsteps, a beat to the way he moved his hands when he talked, like he was listening to music nobody else could hear. Maybe it was an Apollo kid thing, a unique way to work off the extra energy demigods had. It seemed like a less awkward version of Leo’s constant tinkering.

Gods.

Leo.

What was Will going to think about Leo?

Nico snapped out of his thoughts the second they entered the infirmary. It was chaotic. Someone was screaming in what might have been haiku— very profane haiku. A blonde girl _glided_ up to them, grinning like a maniac.

"Nico, right?" she said, with a perfected ‘friendly’ smile. "I'm gonna need any weapons, miscellaneous blades or outside food you're carrying. Especially fruit roll-ups. You'll get them back when your stay is over."

Nico looked at Will for confirmation, then handed over his sword. Will glared at the girl.

"Sarah, how many times do I have to say it?" he yelled over the cacophony. Sarah glided backwards, sticking her tongue out. "No heelies in the infirmary!"

Sarah turned on a dime and heely'd away across the hardwood floor, ignoring Will.

"I swear we're not all as bad as she is," Will said, "now, follow me!"  Nico obeyed, surveying the infirmary as they moved. Everything seemed to be either gold or horrendously brightly coloured. The healers wore hospital scrubs in a rainbow of neons, like they'd been designed to cause eye strain. The patients wore pajamas in fluorescent highlighter orange. Instead of the expected hospital white, the blankets on the beds were mismatched bright colours. Some were embroidered, or glittered. The place looked like it had been attacked by a kindergarten art class. Will was greeted with cheery, if exhausted, smiles and brief nods from the other healers, and the patients who were capable. Nico hunched his shoulders and looked at the floor. The infirmary was loud, bright and crowded— they’d been there for less than a minute and he was already starting to get a headache.

The beds were arranged in rows, sectioned off by brightly-coloured curtains. Was that all the privacy patients got?

Nico could feel people watching him. The few patients who didn't have their curtains closed seemed to be scrutinising him. A girl with her leg in some sort of glowing cast, a boy attached to more tubes than Nico cared to count— the infirmary was for everyone who couldn’t be healed quickly with magic or ambrosia. Nico was probably the only person who’d walked in.

Will led him to a bed in the corner. Between the wall and the bed was a small nightstand. Above the bed was a window, and there was a skylight in the ceiling. Will pulled the curtain shut and there was sudden silence.

"Soundproofing spell," Will explained, "By the way, do you know how my powers like, work? You have the right to understand what I'm doing."

Nico shook his head.

"I have diagnostic touch. That's exactly what it sounds like. And I can sense overall health from a distance. I can heal in various ways and do some totally irrelevant stuff with light. That's pretty much it. Things will be much easier for both of us if you at least take your shirt off,” Will said. He paused. “I mean. The touch thing works better if I can touch your actual skin."

"...Okay," Nico said, trying to convince himself he could handle it. He didn't like being shirtless anyway—it made him feel exposed—but being shirtless in front of Will Solace, obvious golden boy? He'd rather cover himself in breadcrumbs and run through a flock of Stymphalian birds. He peeled his shirt off anyway, then his jeans.

"Arms out. This'll be quick," Will said, glaring at the werewolf scratches like they’d personally offended him. Nico stuck his arms out, feeling more than a little self conscious.

What Will did was something like a less invasive version of an airport pat down, his touches quick and brief, like he was handling sugar-glass. His touch seemed to have a lingering effect, like he'd left glowing handprints on Nico's skin.

"Well," Will said, grabbing a clipboard from the table. He started writing as he spoke. "Those... _lacerations_ on your arms are infected. You'll need antibiotics.The stitches are… decent enough, but I’d like to redo them if you’ll let me. They'll scar. How did you even get them?"

"Werewolf," Nico said. Will's eyes went wide, and the way the light hit them made them look a thousand different shades of blue at once.

"Okay. That doesn't help. The fading is a much more urgent issue, though. It's difficult to put it into words..." Will paused, tapping his pen against the clipboard, "It's like, your godly side is starting to attack your mortal side. Like an autoimmune disorder. We need to get that under control first and foremost. IV liquid light would probably work best. Do you know what that is?”

Nico shrugged, wrapping his arms around himself, trying to hide his bare chest.

"Liquid light is a sort of alternative to ambrosia and nectar. It's better for long term therapy and magical stuff. We use it for the really bad curses. You can have a lot more of it than you can of ambrosia or nectar. It's… rarer, though. It works much faster intravenously," Will explained. “There aren’t many side effects— at worst you’ll get kinda nauseous or drowsy. It takes a while, though. As in, like, seven hours or more. Think you can sit still for that long?"

“...Sure?” Nico said. Surely the sooner he started treatment, the sooner it would be over.

“I’ll bring you some books or something, you’ll be fine,” Will said, with a slightly awkward smile. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

There was a momentary burst of noise as Will opened the curtain and left. Nico sat down on the bed and picked at the wooly blanket. The past few days seemed to be catching up with him— he was getting _tired_. Not crashing-into-unconsciousness tired, like after a shadow jump— just tired, like he’d been awake for too long. It had been a while since he’d had the opportunity to feel like that.

Will appeared again, carrying a set of the obnoxious orange pajamas and a box. He set the box down on the floor, and handed Nico the pajamas.

“What’s in the box?” Nico asked, pulling the pajama shirt over his head. The pajamas were made out of a weirdly soft, thin material, like baby blankets. The Nico had to roll up the sleeves and tie the drawstring of the pants— apparently he was too small for a kid’s size 12.

"IV stuff. IV stuff and books. Hope you like John Green," Will said, unscrewing some sort of collapsed stand. Nico looked warily at the rest of the box's contents. Modern medical equipment scared him a little. It all looked so... alien. So invasive. All those tubes and needles. It was like something from a science fiction comic.

"I'm guessing you haven't had an IV before?" Will asked.

Nico shook his head.

"Don't talk me through it. Just. Do the thing," he said. Gods, that sounded dumb.

"Well, usually I'd do this manually…” Will began, “but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to make one exception.”   
  


Will snapped his fingers, and suddenly Nico had a tube in his arm. A rubbery, opaque  _tube_. 

Nico did not like having a tube in his arm.

The weirdest thing was, it didn’t hurt. It looked like it should hurt. But it just felt … odd. Wrong. Disturbing. It took effort not to gag.

"Lie down and calm down," Will instructed, handing Nico a lollipop, "I'll be back in a couple hours to check on you. After you've had some rest, we really need to talk about your recovery process."  Nico nodded, and Will left him be.   

Nico unwrapped his lollipop and stuck it in his mouth, surprised by the flavour. It tasted weirdly familiar— almost like confetti di pistoia, but that was impossible, because how could you make a _lollipop_ taste like sugared almonds?

The lollipop was almost enough of a distraction. There was an inevitable psych evaluation coming up, and it made Nico feel like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting to see if he was pushed or not.  

He’d heard things. There had been books he wasn’t meant to read, magazines he was too young for. Stations on the radio and whispered gossip full of words like “aversion therapy” and the overly long names of emetics. The medical world was worse, or so it had been. Nico hadn't been in a modern hospital, ever— there would be therapy he didn't know, undoubtedly. What had stuck around was officially recognised? What would be considered treatable, now?

Bianca had prayed for him. She'd begged for higher powers to let him be cured, for the world to change. She hadn’t wanted him to suffer.

Jason said it was okay. Jason might have lied.

....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

 

When Will came back, Nico was staring up at the skylight, watching puffy, white clouds drift across the sky and vegetating in his own exhaustion. He didn’t even notice Will until he started talking.

“Hey.”  Will's voice was soft, almost like he expected Nico to be sleeping. "Do you feel up for lunch?"  

Nico shrugged in response. He wasn't the type to eat if he didn't absolutely have to, but he had a feeling Will wouldn't like that.

"You can have a  sandwich, soup, or tuna pasta salad,"  Will said.

"I don't really care," Nico answered

Will gently took Nico's hand, interlocking their fingers and pressing their wrists together. There was that same spark— almost uncomfortable, like a static shock.

"The liquid light is working well, so you'll probably be stable by discharge day," Will said, with a slight smile. He released Nico's hand to start scribbling on his ever-present clipboard.

"Have you ever kept a food diary?" he asked, not looking up from his notes.

"Nope. Do, um, do you want me to?"  Nico cursed himself internally. He wasn't good at this. Everything was so quiet and still. There was no real… goal to anything. Things were too good to be true. At some point the scale had to tip the other way, and he was just waiting for the moment when everything went wrong, constantly on edge.

Will fished a small book out of one of his pockets.

"Basically, you write everything you eat or drink down in here," he tapped the cover of the book, "and use it to track and improve your diet. Simple."

"Okay..." Nico said. He started picking at the blanket again, pulling clumps of multicoloured fluff out of the knitwork. Will looked at him like he was dissecting him with his eyes, an intense, calculating look like a mechanic scanning a broken engine. It made Nico want to rip open the ground and freefall to the underworld, because the dead didn't look at you like that.    

"It's a pretty easy habit to get into. You can start with breakfast yesterday." Will handed Nico the book and his pen. "I'm going to report to Sarah about your choice to not choose a lunch option. I'll be back in five, we have to talk about meds."

Nico wasn't sure what Will meant by ‘talking about meds,’ but he started writing in the diary anyway. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

His handwriting was abysmal. He hadn't practiced it since he was 10.

When Will got back he struggled to read it— Nico could see him mouthing the words, like a little kid. He kind of hoped it was embarrassing for Will, too.

There was a split second where Will's professionalism wavered, and he looked a little like he was watching a train wreck. Nico found the expression cute on him.

"Nico, may I have your permission to consult with your friends on your condition?" He asked. "It's not that I don't trust your account, it's mostly that you were unconscious for a lot of the quest.”

“I don’t—” Nico cut himself off. “Sure. Talk to whoever you want.” He had Reyna. He had Jason. He had Percy—or at least he used to, sort of—and Annabeth.

“Great. Now, either I can talk for what seems like forever—which would be tiring for the both of us—or you can read this,” Will handed Nico a two sheets of paper, monogrammed with the infirmary's letterhead, "and wait for my sister to show up for your psych stuff."

"But your siblings _hate_ me," Nico said, without thinking, "Austin tried to blind me once and your little sister—the really young one—tried to kill me with a pink violin. I still have scars."

"They don't hate you. I can tell you for a fact that nobody hates you. You are incredibly difficult to hate," Will insisted. "And I know for a fact that both of those… incidents were at least two years ago. Most of them are more mature now."  

"At least one person out there hates _everyone_ ," Nico said. Will seemed to see the world through glasses so rose-tinted they'd be opaque. It was incredibly annoying.

"I think you're the only person who hates you, to be honest," Will said. "Talk to Tammy about that, okay?"

Nico didn't have time to answer before Will disappeared again.

He read through the entire three-page document on liquid light, partially because it was written in Will's looping, elegant handwriting. There were the side effects he'd been told about, a list of interactions and a few tidbits tacked on the end— _'the Aphrodite kids say it can change the undertones of your skin'_ and _'do not look directly at the liquid light. It is like looking directly at the sun. Don't look directly at the sun either.'_

The last page was a list of medications and supplements—with further information to be given on prescription—and in all capitals at the bottom, 'DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT SUMMONING DEAD THINGS.'  

If not for a few slight smudges to the ink, it would have looked machine-printed. No wonder Will had struggled with reading Nico’s writing; his script was as irritatingly perfect as he was. Will was the kind of friend people would want, with a personality that stung like staring into the sun. Sugar and spice and everything nice, that boy was.

Nico couldn’t imagine anything more annoying.

**  
**  


....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

 

Three quarters of an hour later, after Nico had found his hatred for clam chowder and thoroughly examined the pattern of the ceiling tiles—a mosaic of blues, probably the sky—the promised Tammy appeared. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, and looked like she should have been wearing a girl scout uniform. Her hair—redder than Will’s, but still obnoxiously blonde—was pulled back into wavy twin tails, and she had a picture-perfect smattering of freckles across her nose. Nico wondered if _all_ of Apollo’s kids looked like baby gap models.

“I’m Tammy. Do you know what I can do?” she asked. Like Will, she carried a clipboard— Nico caught a glimpse of shimmering pink writing as she moved. Great. He was going to be psychoanalyzed by a second-grade sugarplum fairy.

“I can analyse patterns of thought and brain activity. All you gotta do is talk.” Tammy had a subtle accent, something southern. She smiled at him, pageant-girl pretty and fake, with her eyes open too wide.

“What do I have to talk about?” Nico asked. He was discovering a new level of hatred for the infirmary. First there was— well, Will, and now a child who could do what sounded creepily like mind reading.

“Just answer a few quick questions. None of them are really personal, just simple stuff,” Tammy said. “What’s your favourite colour?”

“Blue,” Nico said. He’d be as generic as possible. Tammy nodded, and scribbled something on her notepad.

“Favourite food?”

“... Cake?”  

“Camp activity.”

“Climbing wall.”

“You’re lying to me.”

Nico froze. If she could work out that he was lying, what else could she work out? What was the standard treatment for murderous perverts? How much did she already know? Did she know about Bryce?

“You’re trying to stop me understanding you, aren’t you?” Tammy was scowling. Her accent getting stronger. Nico had never realised how scary a little girl could be. “So many people try to do that. It doesn’t work. It just makes things harder for everyone involved.”

“...Sorry?”  Nico said. He was screwed. Royally screwed.  

“No. Do you _know_ how _many_ patients we have here?” Tammy’s cheeks flushed an angry red. “All the staff have insane schedules. There’s no time for you to be causing a fuss. Okay?”

Maybe he could make it outside camp, if he really tried. He might still be strong enough for one last jump— there’d be consequences, sure, but he might just survive. Percy’s apartment wasn’t far, not as far as Portugal had been. That would be a good starting point if he didn’t fade halfway there. Even if he did, the Underworld was always better than electroshock, right?

“Calm down. We’re not done. You’re catastrophizing,” Tammy insisted.

She was literally reading Nico’s mind. Probably word for word.

He was so screwed.

Nico tried screaming inside his head. Tammy didn't react.

"I don’t want to have to take extreme measures with you." Yeah, holy crap, he’d never realised how threatening a small girl could be. He was unarmed, but could probably still escape if he had to, even on foot. He could pull the IV and deck her with the base of the stand if it was necessary.

“Look, I have other people to see. If you don’t want to co-operate, I can and will just leave. But I’ll have to tell Will about you.” The undertones of threat in her voice really shouldn’t have been possible, not for a kid who probably still played with barbies. It was downright annoying.

“Maybe I just don’t want to talk to you,” He said, trying to escape the conversation altogether.  

“You’re going to make yourself worse, stressing like this. Your powers and your emotions are still pretty strongly linked.” Tammy said, irritatingly calm.

“I’m pretty sure I know more about my powers than a second  grader.” If he could keep her talking she’d probably get sidetracked.

“Okay. Extreme measures it is then.”

Tammy reached into her pocket and pulled out a small silver object. When she raised it to her lips, Nico realised that it was a harmonica. He almost laughed— was she going to kill him with screechy country music?

And then she started playing.  

  
Nico just about had time to realise how much he _hated_ Apollo kids. She was playing some old country song, on a shitty instrument, but the notes filled the room like an orchestra. It was like some sort of hypnosis. Ridiculous, deep-south style hypnosis. Of all the things to overpower him, Nico was facing defeat at the hands of a small girl playing what might be the worst instrument on earth.

This was _not_ a good day.

Tammy stopped playing. Nico felt like his brain was slowly turning to cotton candy, all pink and fluffy and light as air. In the back of his mind it was irritating, scary even, but he didn’t really care. It wasn't like it mattered. Not now.  

Tammy snapped her fingers in front of Nico's face. The world came back into focus, like someone had switched gravity back on. Nico blinked a couple times.

"What was _that_?" he asked. It surprised him how calm he sounded.

"Combo spell. Calming and confessional. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, but you probably will."

"I absolutely hate this place."

"Most patients do."

"Couldn't Will have done this? You can't be qualified to do anything more than give out bandaids."

"Will works twelve hour days, minimum. He has a lot to do, and as long as you're not having a fit of goth magic then you're not very high priority."

"I don't have fits of goth magic. It's underworld magic and I'm in total control of it."

"Hold this," Tammy held out her stupid glitter pen, and Nico grabbed it. The vibrant pink was just visible through his fingertips, as if it was glowing.  "And your powers aren't tied to your emotions." She sounded almost smug.

"If you weren't half my age, I'd punch you in the face."  

Tammy wrote more on her clipboard. Great, now Nico would be down as _officially_ psycho.

“One last question— are you okay with Will as your primary carer, or—”

“Send anyone else and there will be literal hell to pay.”

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” Tammy said. She snapped her fingers in front of Nico’s face again, and left.

Nico considered the things he had just said.

Nico considered smothering himself with one of the duck-down pillows.

He grabbed one of the books Will had left him. At least he had a distraction, even if it was a dumb book for teenage girls. He'd seen the cover everywhere for a while— blue, with black and white clouds. It had been made into some dumb, gushy romance movie, with a dumb, clichéd trailer that had been so prevalent in pop culture that even he'd seen it once or twice.

He was so desperate to avoid thinking about...anything, really— that the book was a better choice. Usually, he was either too busy fighting or too unconscious to do much soul-searching. The amount of free time he had right now was downright disturbing.

Nico started reading, perceiving the words but not really absorbing them. Nothing really stuck when he reached the bottom of each page; he was just trying to make the day end faster. The story—or what small amounts of it he picked up on—was about love and dying, like every other story written. It was dumbly romantic and pretentious, and was just a minuscule amount less boring than staring at the ceiling had been. What Nico really wanted was to move, to go  outside, to fight something. But he was trapped by the stupid tube in his arm, so he resigned himself to the terrible book.

Nico was still reading when Will came back. The sun was getting lower in the sky. It was still a few hours until sunset proper, but the shadows in the room were starting to deepen, to stretch across the floor. Will nodded to Nico and then cupped his hands in the sunshine from the window, concentrating. He moved his hands like he was moulding a snowball, and then brought them out of the light. Cupped in his hands was a perfect sphere of glow.

Will suspended the glowing sphere in a corner near the ceiling, as high as he could reach. He placed another in the opposite corner, and another in each corner near the floor.

"What are you doing?" Nico asked, lowering his book.

"Well..." Will said, grabbing more sunlight. "You're almost done with the IV and the sun is setting soon. Reyna tells me you can get a little less... _corporeal_  in the dark and when you're sleeping, so this is insurance."  

"How am I meant to sleep with glowy stuff everywhere?"  

"If you don't mind drinking something that tastes kinda gross, you can sleep for exactly as long as you need to without any nightmares. It's standard procedure for the first night," Will answered. He was standing still for maybe the first time since Nico'd met him.

"So… you're going to _sedate_ me?" Nico asked.

"No. You'll be in a deep, healing sleep, but nothing you couldn't be snapped out of with an alarm clock."

Something about the idea of it made Nico uncomfortable. He'd been okay with being in a shadow coma around Reyna—or, as okay as one could be with a coma in general—but what Will was talking about would make him completely vulnerable.  

"Um..." he said. He decided to risk it. "Sure. I'll do it."  

Will got the slightest suggestion of a smile on his face, like his normal grin would have been too much effort.

_Twelve hour days_ , Nico remembered. _Minimum_.

"Good, good," Will said, "you can take it with dinner."

At the mention of dinner, Nico wrinkled his nose. After the terrible experience of the clam chowder, he didn't want to eat in the infirmary again, or at least not until tomorrow. There was the weird, medical smell that he'd forever associate with soup that made him want to gag, and saltine crackers that were on the edge of going stale.

"Don't give me that look. You get pizza, be happy," Will said, "and since I've finally got the time, I'm going to stick around and do some more tests."

"Do you have to?"

"If you behave, you'll get a sticker." Will rummaged through the drawers of the nightstand, fishing out all manner of strange instruments. "Maybe even _two stickers_ , if you're really good."

Nico kind of wanted to punch Will then, right in his stupid pretty face. In the glow from the spheres of light, Nico could just make out faint freckles on Will's arms, and an assortment of barely-visible scars. For someone who rarely actually fought, Will seemed to have a lot of battle wounds.

Will finally found what he was looking for— a slightly creased paper form and a pen. “For notes,” he explained, offering a hand. The spark Nico felt when he took it was almost familiar, almost pleasant.

Nico would never admit it, but he was starting to get used to this.

 ****  
  



	2. Twilight, but with characters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic actually updates sometimes, I promise. My schedule has just been crazy.
> 
> Disclaimer: Nothing whatsoever like twilight.

Will Solace was going to drive himself crazy. He was certain of it.

He'd been awake for nearly thirty hours and was surviving mostly on caffeine and godly gifts. No ordinary human would be able to function at this level without sleep, but diagnoses and treatment plans were as much a part of him as his bones. If he stepped outside the infirmary he'd probably collapse.

So not only was he bad at the only thing he was good at, he was also a hypocrite. Fantastic.

The ‘Nico’ situation was more than a little hellish. Sure, the kid looked like a skeleton that had been dragged backwards through a hot topic, but somewhere under the dark circles and malnourishment there was beauty. Nico was hotter than death valley and probably twice as deadly. If Will couldn’t think straight—in either sense of the word—there would be problems. If he got a lot of paperwork done, he’d have more time with Nico the next day. Maybe Nico would come out of his shell a little if they spent more than ten consecutive seconds talking. There were enough patients being discharged in the morning that he’d have free time by the afternoon.

At least, that was his excuse for still being awake at one thirty in the morning.   
  


He’d taken over the pinochle table for paperwork and notes, with a direct line of sight to the infirmary. If not for the _obscene_ amount of caffeine he’d consumed, he wouldn’t have been able to keep his eyes open. The infirmary was always like this after major battles, overcrowded and understaffed to all hell. They could manage maybe a week and a half like this before the collective burnout set in. Kayla was curled up in a corner, asleep. Technically they should have been sharing the responsibility, but Will couldn’t bring himself to wake her.

Will was not a prophetic dreamer, or at least not as far as anyone could tell. He had nonsensical nightmares that even the Hypnos kids struggled to decipher. For a demigod, dreaming like that was downright _bizarre_ , almost pathological.

At first he thought he was just remembering; remembering Olympus from years and years ago. Pillars stretched up into the candy-blue sky, and the sun shone violently bright. The area around him, though, was in near-complete darkness. Storm clouds hung overhead, and the air was heavy with the smell of ozone and New York pollution. The wind tossed bruised laurel leaves through the air, the only inconsistency with actual events. Will just barely had time to look up to see his father standing defiant against the other gods before the scene vanished.

Will was left in complete, crushing darkness. He tentatively stuck his arms out, feeling nothing but still, tepid air, as if he was in a crypt. There was total, enveloping silence. Will could hear his own heartbeat. He took one step forward and fell, slipping on a layer of unidentified objects that clattered along under his feet. The sound seemed deafening. He reached out, feeling along one of the objects. It was long and slender, with a horribly recognisable shape to the end— a bone. A femur, to be exact. He was lying on a carpet of bones.

In the distance, there was sound.

Will froze, not even breathing. His heart sounded maddeningly loud, as if a firework went off every time the valves shut. The sound grew closer, in a recognisable rhythm— heavy, crunching footsteps. Will got unsteadily to his feet and ran, dislodged bones clattering down around him. He was moving downhill, the footsteps speeding up with him. Suddenly the ground was smooth. His hands found a wall, and eventually the corners of a doorframe. He slammed his shoulder into the door and tumbled through, blinded by a greenish light.

The footsteps thundered past outside, and Will realised where he was. A library. Of all the nightmarish places his subconscious could take him, he was in a library. The shelves seemed to be made of black glass, and the room was lit by dim, green torches, but some things were oddly familiar. Plastic covers over books. Signs, carved directly into the glass, saying ‘book returns’ and ‘large print.’  Balanced on a lectern in the middle of the room was a thick, black and gold book. Will padded over to it, reached out to touch the cover—

**  
  
**

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Will woke up, disturbingly, to his sister poking him with a pencil. He was used to rising with the sun; oversleeping even a minute was just _weird_. Kayla didn’t even look angry with him. Or at least, not as much as she usually did.

“Go. Shower. Eat. You’re gonna need it.” She paused, blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Lou Ellen and I can manage for like, an hour."

Will considered this for a second. Lou Ellen was _technically_ as trained as most of the infirmary staff, and Kayla was the closest thing he had to a deputy. They had schedules and whiteboards everywhere. They could handle it.

The infirmary showers ran ice-cold early in the morning, and the soap had always irritated Will’s skin a little, but it was better than nothing. He was going to scrounge around the Big House for food, until Lou Ellen gave him a _look_ and he decided that heading to the dining pavilion would probably be a better choice for his immediate survival. As he left the infirmary, Kayla pushed a package at his chest, and told him to “open it later.”

Outside, a light drizzle was falling. The morning sky was a dull blueish grey, and all Will could think about was how much he wanted to go back to sleep. Being outside should have made him feel at least a little more awake, but he might as well have spent the night running a marathon instead of sleeping. It was like healing people had somehow become more draining. He remembered how absolutely _shattered_ he’d felt after the Battle of Manhattan— this was almost as bad, and he’d been _twelve_ then. He was probably just being paranoid, but it felt like something was wrong. Maybe it tied in with the loss of prophecy.

In the dining pavilion, Will found Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. _The_ Percy Jackson. Child of two prophecies, capable of punching someone in the face with an entire ocean. Percy Jackson could probably beat at least one Olympian in a fight. And he was sitting awkwardly on Annabeth’s lap, his arms wrapped around her neck, hers around him. It was an incredibly intimate moment. Will didn't want to disturb them— relationships like theirs could do wonders for the healing process, and he liked breathing air and having all his limbs attached. He tried to tiptoe past so he could get some granola without angering one of the most powerful demigods alive. 

"Will!"

Aw, _schist_.

Will turned and walked over to the table they were at. Percy unfurled, slid off Annabeth's lap and gestured for him to sit opposite them. Will complied. His palms were sweating.

"You're in charge of Nico's… healing and stuff, right?" Percy asked. He attempted a smile—did Will really look that scared?—emphasising the bags under his eyes. Annabeth had them too. Will ran through their lists of traumas in his head as he nodded in reply.

"Be nice to him, okay?" Percy insisted, "Like, especially nice. He's had to deal with so much shit from everyone. And everything. Actually, can we visit him?”  

“He’s sleeping, but I can send someone to find you when he wakes up if you’d like,” Will said, “It’s, like, not even six in the morning right now.”

“Tell him in advance, though,” Annabeth said, “I don’t think he’d be happy if, uh, if we just stormed in.”  

“Big three rivalry?” Will asked. Percy visibly relaxed at this. Will knew that he was way off the mark, but he wasn’t going to pry. Technically, Nico had consented for him to pry, but this clearly wasn’t something he should look into. That, or something he really should look into.

“Yeah. That,” Percy said. “What’s in the box?”

Perseus Jackson looked like an Armani model who’d been dropped in the wilderness and survived by fighting literally every single thing he saw, which wasn’t too far off the reality. And he was powerful enough to star in his own city-wrecking disaster movie.

But that wasn’t going to stop Will trying to steer the conversation back on track.

“No idea. I think my mom might have sent it,” Will said. “You were on a quest with Nico, right? Is there anything you think would be useful for me to know?”  

Percy froze. He looked to Annabeth for help, and Will caught the slight shift in her facial expression before she shook her head.

“No… nothing you wouldn't know already,” she said. “You talked to Hazel. She’s a lot closer to him than we are.”   
  


There wasn’t just an elephant in the room at this point, there was a goddamn zoo. Questions Will was too afraid to ask hung in the air like fog, and Annabeth had taken _eye contact_ through to the next level. He felt like she was seeing his soul and giving it a cavity search.

“Yeah, I guess she is,” he said, “there are just some things Hazel didn’t get to... experience.”  

“Oh,” Annabeth said softly. “Well, I’d rather not, uh…”

“No, no, it’s okay!” Will raised his hands, almost defensive. “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”

“Everyone sees it differently,” Percy said. He wrapped an arm around Annabeth’s waist, holding her closer. “It was probably worse for Nico, though. Annabeth and I… we had eachother, at least, so—" He cut himself off with a yawn.

"Did either of you sleep last night? Like, at all?"

"I slept for... thirty minutes? Maybe?" Annabeth said, her head on Percy's shoulder. "Before _someone_ decided to wake me up for no good reason."

"Excuse you, I had a fantastic reason," Percy protested, half-joking. "It's called 'demigod dreams are really weird and I needed your help to sneak out for snacks.' Very logical."

"And you’ve both been awake since then? Go sleep! Shoo!” Will insisted. If he wasn’t allowed to go without sleep, then neither were the two-times heroes of Olympus.

To his surprise, Percy and Annabeth actually _listened_ to him. _That_ was new.  

Will grabbed some coffee and some cereal and started picking open the box. He got through the tape on top and one of the sides before he realised what was in it. When he saw the leather binding and yellowed paper, he almost aspirated a cheerio.

Someone had sent him the book from his dream.

If books could kill, this one would have been the world’s most skilled assassin. The thing was at least four hundred pages thick, and the cover was embossed with designs of torture and gore. Will would have to admit that the artistry of the thing was amazing, but it didn’t even seem to be in English. The alphabet was the same, but there were some suspicious accents above letters. It was the kind of thing someone would have to read in the Fields of Punishment.

Will thought about opening it. On the one hand, this might be some weird curse bull honky— like Pandora’s box, the novelization. On the other hand, the book had a clear ‘Underworld’ look to it, and that meant it might contain information that could keep Nico alive, and keeping Nico alive was a priority. With his thumb and forefinger, Will carefully opened the cover. A sheet of paper fluttered out, white cursive writing on stark black paper. Five words.

_Read this._

__

_It will help._

The first page of the book was signed off with a name in scratchy, faded handwriting.

Giuseppe Argento.

 

The book was definitely not in English.

Will flicked through a few pages of the book. He could read the dates—none later than 1819—and nothing else. _Very_ helpful.

In lieu of anything actually useful to do, Will wandered back to the infirmary, the creepy book tucked under his arm. Maybe it was a cipher of some kind.

It was still far too early for any of the patients to be awake. The sky was lightening, at least, but Lou Ellen had nothing to do but sit on an office chair, spinning lazy circles and clicking a pen. Kayla was leaning against the desk, flicking through a notepad.

“Did you know Nico talks in his sleep?” she asked. “I wrote down what he said.”

“Somniloquy is a common side effect of—”

“He said you were pretty,” Kayla cut him off, “Well, to be precise, he said you were a ‘dumb glowy asshole with a dumb pretty face and dumb Shirley Temple hair’ but that’s basically the same thing. Here, read this."

Kayla tossed the notepad over and Will barely managed to catch it. Just the slightest suggestion that Nico di Angelo—the Nico di Angelo—found him even vaguely attractive was... woah. He felt like a white girl in a clichéd teen movie. Just helplessly obsessing over some guy. He was the Bella Swan of the situation— except her pale, creepy love interest hadn’t had vitals to check.  

Will actually had to _mentally prepare_ himself to see Nico, which he was ashamed of. He was a _professional_ , not some giggling schoolgirl.

 

His first look at Nico spurred two separate trains of thought; the logical, professional concern and the memory of a string of words he’d once heard. A Michelangelo quote. “I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free.”

Against the oversaturated blue of the blankets, Nico looked as pale as porcelain. The after-effects of liquid light glowed under his skin, like sunshine through silk. He slept in a hunched, unnatural position, like there wasn’t space to be comfortable.

Will knew very little about the quest Nico’d been on, and he didn’t seem the type to talk about it. Most demigods came back with nightmares of monsters and permanent scars, but Nico had a look in his eyes like the children in charity adverts. It was beyond unnerving.

From what he’d heard, this was an improvement.

Sarah came in at six o’clock on the dot, the wheels of her banned shoes rattling on the wooden floor. Will glared at her as he tweaked the day’s agenda, but let her be. Under her cotton-candy pink sleeve was a mass of scar tissue where they’d reconstructed her arm. She’d been lucky to walk away from the battle with Gaea with only one limb permanently damaged. Ambrosia could heal broken bones, sure, but someone had to set them.

"Give me that!" Sarah grabbed the clipboard with both hands, flicked through the printouts.

"Good morning to you too," Will said, "You know stuff about languages right?"

"Sorta." Sarah squinted at the page. "Your handwriting is like its own language. Lucky for you, I'm a great translator."

"I need you to tell me what language a book is in." Will said it like the ‘book’ in question couldn’t be used as a weapon.

"Lead the way. Want a Snickers?" Sarah asked, pulling a handful of contraband candy from her pocket.

"I'm allergic to milk _and_ peanuts. Are you trying to kill me?"

"You're not you when you're hungry. It's in the adverts!"

"Because I'm completely myself when I'm literally going into anaphylaxis."

"Whatever, whatever. Show me your dumb book already," Sarah said, unwrapping a roll of rollos and cramming them in her mouth instead.

Will led her to his "office”—or, rather, the rec room the infirmary had expanded to include—and gave her the book. She thumped it back down on the desk immediately, like it was too heavy to hold and read.

"L'in," she said, cramming the rest of the candy in her mouth. She flicked through a few pages, then swallowed. "It's all Latin. Wait, no, this bit is in Italian, but really old Italian— early to mid 1800s, probably? It's like 95% Latin though."

"Thanks," Will said, taking the book back. Latin, Latin... who knew Latin? "Find me Jason Grace."

Sarah nodded, giving him a thumbs up with one hand and shoving a peppermint patty into her mouth with the other.

"You're gonna get heart disease if you keep eating that much sugar!" Will called after her as she rolled away.

"You're gonna die alone if you keep being so boring!" she yelled back.

The rest of the morning shift staff started filing in after that, with mugs of coffee or aspartame-laden energy drinks. It was odd how few of them were actual children of Apollo— too many had been wounded, too many were too young. Most of the demigods working this early were Athena or Hephaestus kids, quick learners who could wrap their heads around how a body worked.

And most of them were older than Will. Sarah was the only person more than a few months younger than him. He’d turned fourteen a few months before the rise of Gaea, and there was something a little odd about giving orders to people who would be three grades ahead of him.

Jason appeared around half an hour later, with messy hair and a slight scowl.

"Hey. The Hermes girl said you needed me?"

Will had always found the big three kids a little scary, but Jason Grace took the cake. He was taller than Will by at least a few inches, and he didn't have the awkward, post-growth-spurt kind of height Will did— Jason spent a lot of time fighting, and his body reflected that. He had an almost _regal_ presence; like he generated his own gravity. It seemed to come with being a child of a big three god. They all had echoes of the sort of entitled, overprivileged _aura_ that you got at ivy-league universities. As if it was a _hassle_ to be able to control primal forces of nature.

It took Will a couple seconds to remember that this was a boy who'd had, like, seven concussions in fewer months and regularly flew into windows that _looked_ open.

"Do you read Latin?" he asked.

"Yeah. Do you need something translated?" Jason pushed his glasses up from where they'd started slipping. He looked weird with glasses, Will thought, like putting a necktie on a shark. The contrast was almost comical.

"Well, I… found a book in Latin. Just a minute." Will fished the book out of the sea of paper on the pinochle table.

Jason opened the book. He scanned the first page, painfully slow.

"It's a diary. By some dude in the old days."

Will waited for him to say more.

"Here, I'll read it. September second, eighteen sixteen. Father warned me about this, but I didn't listen. I didn't listen because I'm a… pot? Well, it literally translates to pot, but I think they mean they're stupid. I’m going to die because I didn’t listen. They say I need sunshine. I’m in the sun right now and I’m not enjoying it. If I ever meet Apollo, I will— um. You’re like, thirteen, right?”

“I’m fourteen. Why?”

They didn't have time for this. Even with the number of patients dwindling, the infirmary was still oppressively hectic. After big battles it would swell to overflow the room, taking over any available space. And Jason wanted to talk about age ratings.  

“This might not not be appropriate for your innocent ears.”

“I’m not a child, Jason. I’m a doctor. I’m pretty sure nothing can top the schist I’ve seen.”

“It’s really graphic.”

“No, total uterine prolapse is graphic. Cystic echinococcosis is graphic. Whatever this is, it is not graphic.”

“How about I just write a translation? A lot of this will need to be, uh, toned down if you're gonna read it.”

“Fine, treat me like an infant. I have more important things to do than argue with you over whether I’m mature enough for nineteenth-century insults.”

  
“You’re being very childish.”   
  


“You’re being very condescending.”

“Do you want me to translate your weird necronomicon or not?”

Will admitted defeat.

“Just do the thing. Please. It’s really important. And get it in Greek if you can, I can't read anything else."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

It was noon before Will actually got to see Nico again, and technically he should have left an hour ago, but shifts meant nothing right now. At least he’d be good at being on call.

The second Will stepped into Nico’s room he knew this wasn’t going to be fun. Nico had managed to arm himself, with four scalpels—how on earth had he gotten those?—a pair of scissors, and a rib.

“Nico di Angelo, I swear to every god if you summoned that rib…” Will said. Nico responded by glaring at him. Excellent.

“Are you going to do the thing with the needles like Jonathan? Because I have… weird surgery knives and I’m not afraid to use them!” Nico threatened, poised as if ready to throw a scalpel at Will’s head.

“Nico, calm down. Tell me what happened. And put the scalpels down,”  Will commanded. Nico did neither.

“Your Jonathan woke me up to stick a needle in my arm to steal my blood. What do you want with my blood? Are you using it for dark magic? I bet it’s dark magic.”

Will wasn't sure when Nico was from, but it was apparently before blood tests were invented. And someone had made the mistake of waking him up before he was done sleeping. With the meds he was on, that was a mistake.

“I promise it’s not dark magic. Dark magic is your thing. It’s for tests,” Will explained, picking up the clipboard Jonathan had left. Apparently, Nico was ‘stable, but incredibly bitchy and violent.’  

Nico lowered his weapons.

“What tests? What are you testing?” he asked, still suspicious.

“Stuff,” Will said, flipping to the next page, “blood counts and things.”

"Is Jonathan a son of Demeter? He was really, really intense about me eating oatmeal. Obsessively intense. He woke me up at, like, the asscrack of dawn to convince me of the gospel of quaker oats.” Nico switched into a high, mocking voice. “Oh, no, you need _complex carbs_ , and _minerals_ , that’s why all our food is _fortified_ , so you can get the most complicated carbs there are. Nevermind that it’s four A.M, you can’t just have _normal_ food, you need to master the complexity of these specific cereals to graduate from from the fucking High School Of Nutrition!”

Nico was doing the typical bored demigod thing of talking almost endlessly. It was a form of hyperactivity— If you couldn’t be actually active you’d talk.  

“Jonathan is an innocent son of Athena who is in no way related to oatmeal-based crimes,” Will said, gently taking the scalpels and scissors. “Besides your complete hatred of oatmeal, how are you feeling?”

“Bored. Incredibly bored. Do I really need to be here?”

“Yes.” Will said it too quickly. Nico looked him in the eye for maybe the first time, clearly suspicious.

“How do you know? For certain?” Will thought for a moment of telling Nico about the book, but settled for explaining more of his powers.

“You know how in video games things have health bars?”

“I haven’t played them.”

“Didn’t you literally live in an arcade?”

“I _literally_ thought it was still the 1940s.”

“Hit points? You play that card game, I remember, with, um—”   
  


“Mythomagic?” Nico sounded almost offended. “I haven’t played mythomagic since I was like, eleven.”

“Okay, okay, mythomagic is for kids, but do you remember how hit points worked? Or health points or whatever they’re called? It’s like that. I can see people’s HP.”

Nico considered that for a moment.

“So… what would mine be?” he asked, like Will had actually made sense.  

“Like, fifteen, maybe twenty? I, uh—”

“Fifteen? Out of what?”

“I meant fifteen _percent_.”  

Nico blinked. “Oh.”

“You’ll be fine.” Will said it carefully— it wasn’t technically lying. You just had to change the definition of ‘fine’ a little. “You’re not allowed to do your spooky underworld magic for at least a few months, though. Maybe longer. You’ll have to work back up to shadow travelling.”

Nico gave him an incredibly cute annoyed look.  

“I’ll be perfectly capable of shadow travelling in, like, a week. It’s just, like, normal shadow travel times… lots.”

“It’s really, really not.”

“You’re saying that shadow travelling lots… is a different thing from shadow travelling lots.”

“Do you almost die after normal shadow travelling?”

“Sometimes. It depends.”

Will was speechless for a moment. Then he considered what the consequences would be if he broke into the underworld to lecture Hades on some basic principles of parenting, like _not letting his child almost die of freaking goth teleportation._

__

He’d probably die. It’d be like Romeo and Juliet, except not at all like Romeo and Juliet and significantly less heterosexual. And Nico probably wouldn’t commit suicide on his behalf.

“You shouldn’t be dying of using simple demigod powers.”

“Leave me alone.”  

“If I leave you alone, you might start turning into literal shadows, and then your dad would kill me, or sue me for medical negligence, or both.”  Nico responded by pulling his blanket over his head and telling Will to “fuck _off_.”

Will gave up on getting him to cooperate.

It was typical of his luck, this level of _obsession_ with someone who hated him. He felt like a planet falling into orbit around a black hole. There was no way this wouldn't destroy him, but he couldn't seem to escape. He’d skipped over the event horizon years ago.

He was starting to understand how his father must have felt about Daphne.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

As always, Will heard Sarah before he saw her. Her shoes were really starting to bug him, but he had more important things to worry about. 

 

“I brought you your creepy book translation!” she trilled. “Also, skittles.”

“Thanks, Sarah.” Will took the stapled stack of paper and bag of disgusting candy. Jason had apparently added notes.

Sarah saluted and heely’d away. Will flicked through the pages, looking for anything useful. The original author was a child of Hades, and... incredibly annoying.

_Father said I should listen to the healers and spend time in the sunshine. This may be disrespectful to write, but he’s being an idiot. The last time spent time in the sunshine, I almost died of sunstroke._

__

_Today I was forced into the blinding light. I hate the sun. If I have the misfortune to survive this ordeal, I’m going get up there and make Apollo take more blades than he has taken cocks. All at once. Right in the ass. Here, Jason had written “I toned this down so u wouldnt be scarred for life. Nicos sibling really needed to chill.”_

__

Will stopped reading the entries all the way through— he didn’t have time. He skimmed through the rest. Treatment seemed to just be sunshine and general healthy things like eating veggies and not living underground for years, all of which Nico and the author had failed miserably at.   
  


As he read through the journal, the writing started making a lot less sense.  It melted from complete (if offensive) sentences to strings of words that were barely comprehensible. It chronicled a painful deterioration, ending in a blank page.

Will counted through the entries again, added up the dates. He prayed that he’d gotten something wrong.

The backslide; nightmares, hallucinations, objects dropping through the author’s hands. It had started after five days. If you did the math—

No.

Gods, _no_.

 **  
** He couldn't lose him.


	3. Fight to the Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHA, YOU THOUGHT I'D NEVER UPDATE THIS, DIDN'T YOU? 
> 
> YOU THOUGHT WRONG.

  
  


Nico woke abruptly to a hand  _ in  _ his chest. The sight bypassed logic and triggered some primal response deep in his brain. His hands were barely corporeal enough to make a half-successful attempt at clawing the alien arm away. 

 

“No- Nononono don’t-” it was a girl’s voice, high pitched and terrified. Nico tried to look at her, look at anything more than where her hand, still glued to a stethoscope, was sinking into his sternum. “Don’t  _ move _ !” she said.  

 

“You’re not Will,” Nico felt like he’d stepped into some bizarre purgatory; the shadows from the moonlight swam on the walls and the angles of the room were off somehow, like a child’s attempt at drawing perspective. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Where’s Will?” 

 

“I’m Kayla, you’re relapsing, and Will will be here soon, okay?” Kayla’s voice seemed to be drifting away as she said it, like someone speaking from a hot air balloon as it rose. “I’m going to sing you some- imagine dragons? Yeah. That makes  _ sense _ .”  

 

Where was Will? 

 

Kayla started to sing. 

 

“ When the days are cold And the cards all fold And the saints we see Are all made of gold,” her voice resonated in an odd way, and the whole room seemed to vibrate with it. Nico felt like he was inside a wineglass an opera singer was about to shatter. 

 

He really didn’t like the song. He was  _ dying  _ and the only thing he could think of was how much he disliked a song. His last words were going to be famous- “I don’t like that song” 

 

He was trying to cover his ears with incorporeal hands, when Will burst in looking like something  _ biblical _ . 

 

He was glowing. Literally, visually emitting light. His eyes burned like sunlight through stained glass, and there seemed to be light exploding from under his skin. Nico felt Will’s hand slip physically through his, then grab his wrist. It was the last thing he saw, Will, so bright he had to squint. It was like watching the end of the world. 

 

//break\\\ 

Nico dreamed of flowers. Sunset in his hometown, the smell of fresh baked bread. It was a montage of happy memories, smashed together and overlapping like photos on double-exposed film. Clarity came slowly. 

 

He was in a field of wildflowers, basking in the sunlight. Will was nearby, weaving flowers into what looked like a wreath. The sun was warm. Too warm, sweltering. There was music playing, somewhere, faintly. A band. Will finished his wreath of flowers, and put it on like a hat. He stood, and offered Nico a hand. Nico grabbed it and Will pulled him to his feet- and the distant music stopped. At their feet, flowers began to wilt. The world tilted, and Nico woke up.    
  


The first thing he noticed was the sunshine. Bright, blinding sunshine. Then Will. 

 

Will was sitting in a folding chair near the wall. He was  _ staring  _ at Nico. It would have been creepy, if he hadn’t looked so worried. 

  
“Nico?” he asked, as if afraid to do so. 

 

“What the fuck was  _ that? _ ” Nico asked, pushing himself up on his elbows. It scared him that his arms were shaking. “Your sister was singing  _ awful  _ music, you were like, doing this glowy… thing… I think I almost died… what the  _ fuck? _ ” 

 

Will looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, but he smiled, slightly. 

 

“Okay. You’re okay,” he said it almost like he was praying, “You started fading again. We fixed it. Sort of.”  

 

“ _ Sort of _ ?” Nico accused. He seemed to be draining so much time and energy. 

 

“How do I word this… we basically did a spell that makes it easier to recover from.” 

 

“You absolutely did not,” Kayla said, poking her head around the door, “Nico, my brother is being a dumb idiot. He has the dumb power to give people recovery time out of his own life and you’re now a month and a half better. Congrats." 

 

“My powers aren’t dumb, Kayla, I  _ save people’s lives _ .” Will countered. 

 

“Shut up. You shot yourself in the foot with a  _ bow _ ,” Kayla said. Will glared at her. She stuck her tongue out at him then stopped intruding and shut the door. 

 

Gods, Nico hated the infirmary. The last time he’d felt so trapped, he was back in the bronze jar. Time moved slowly as molasses. His life had almost ended and he’d been almost happy that  _ something  _ had happened. 

 

"Nico?" Will's voice reminded Nico, weirdly, of Westover hall; of the school orchestra playing music they hadn't quite perfected yet. Not exactly unpleasant, but somehow… off. 

 

"What?"  Not thinking. Not thinking. Nico was not thinking about anything. He was in total Zen. 

 

And then Will did this weird pouty frowny thing that was totally undignified but also incredibly attractive, and all Nico could think of was more uses for those gorgeous lips... 

 

"You're going to have to stay a little longer than we originally planned." 

 

Nico barely caught that, because he was too busy trying to tally up exactly how many sins he was committing.  

 

"Oh. Um. Okay," he said, "How much longer?" 

 

"I'm not sure. You'll be counted as a long-term patient, though. You'll be allowed visitors, if you want them. And probably get given lots of bouquets," Will answered. Nico was too tired to bother trying to analyse him, but he knew Will was hiding something. The boy was an open book. 

 

"I hate bouquets." Nico scowled at the notion of being here with  _ flowers _ . "I've been a flower before. It's terrible. I wouldn't recommend it." He was starting to think he was drugged, or going stir crazy. He couldn't seem to shut up.

 

"I got turned into a sunflower once," Will said, "I’d agree with you there.” 

 

"Persephone really likes turning me into weeds. It's her own special way of showing her absolute hatred for me."  

 

Will laughed a little at that. 

 

"None of the gods really care I exist," he said, "Artemis did say that I was a lost cause one time, that kind of counts."  

 

"Artemis hates boys. She thinks all of us are lost causes."

 

"No, I mean, I was like nine, and I was at archery practice, and my auntie literally descended from the heavens and was like ‘William, not even  _ I _ could teach you how to hit a target. Now put the bow down before someone gets hurt.’ That was the time I shot myself, actually. Well. The time Kayla was talking about." 

 

"You fight with a bow, though. You had one in Manhattan." 

 

"What I lack in aim, I make up for in enthusiasm,"  Will said, "Also, I probably would have accidentally decapitated myself if I had a sword." 

 

"How do you spend years at demigod summer camp and not learn basic battle skills?" 

 

"I'm a lover, not a fighter," Will sounded completely serious. It was more than a little ridiculous. 

 

Nico didn't laugh, but he managed half a smile. Maybe everything would be alright, if he just gave in to the destraction.   

 

The next hour brought Kayla's shift. She was almost scary in the daylight. She was tall and scandinavian-pale, with pale yellowish hair pulled into a bun so tight it must have hurt. She’d  _ stomped  _ in with her floral doc martens and fluorescent green scrubs and bared her teeth in a service-industry smile. 

 

“Look, I know you’re ‘sensitive’ and stuff but I won’t lie to you.” She said. Nico was instantly suspicious.

 

“Lie to me about  _ what? _ ”  He asked. 

 

“Will likes to soften the blow. Especially with you. Say's it's motivating." 

 

Will was certainly good at what he did. Even if it was a  _ bit  _ disrespectful. Nico of all people could handle negativity. Will seemed like he’d be soft on everyone.

 

"What is he hiding from me?" Nico asked.

 

"Let me see..." Kayla flipped through a battered notepad. "Lots of stuff. Worst news first, or..." 

 

“Just  _ tell _ me.” He was almost pleading, now. His mind was a swarm of awkward questions.

 

"You're probably never shadow traveling again." Kayla had clearly never been trained in delivery of bad news. “I know it sucks, but-” 

 

"He said that I'd be allowed-" 

 

"Oh, you'll be allowed, you just won't be… _ safely  _ able to.” Kayla flipped through her notebook again. “Well, not for a long time. You know how athletes can get career-ending injuries? This looks something like that.” 

 

Nico flopped rather dramatically back onto his pillows. He had a very vague idea of how recovery would work; he knew at least that it would take  _ months _ . Months of time and energy taken up on both sides of the equation. 

 

“You know, it would really help if we could get in contact with your dad…” Kayla spoke carefully, like she was negotiating. “He could probably...help?” 

  
It was amazing, how fast her confidence had crumbled.There was always a sense of terrifying celebrity when Hades was mentioned, nowadays. As if he was some  _ dictator _ . The air would go cold at the mention of his name, people would say, like he was listening. It wasn’t a case of power. There was no tyranny, not like with the other gods- everyone was afraid of the logic. There was no such thing as a raw nerve in the underworld. All judgement was fair. 

 

“You could try?” Nico shrugged. Anything to get him out of the infirmary sooner. 

 

Kayla didn’t smile, exactly, but her face relaxed somewhat. 

 

“We’ve got a lot of daylight left.” She offered. “Want to go sit out on the deck for a bit?”

 

And that was how Nico ended up outside in the sunshine wearing nothing but pajamas and monitors. Kayla was, in her own words,  _ No Will _ . She couldn’t sense heart rate or blood O2 or bpm or anything else in the list of mysterious medical terms she’d rattled off in ‘explanation’. Not without constant contact.

 

Kayla squinted out over the deck’s railing, the sun in her eyes. She’d pilfered a lollipop on their way out and was chewing the plastic stick apart.  

 

Nico missed Will. The silence between him and Kayla was irritating. He could hear almost all of camp. Distant shouting, clacking training swords, faint music. A glass of iced tea sat on a sun-bleached folding table beside his deckchair. He didn’t trust it enough to drink it; who drank  _ cold tea _ ?

 

“Wait, is that…” Kayla cupped her hands around her mouth, yelled. “ANNABETH!” 

 

Nico closed his eyes. Annabeth meant Percy, and Percy meant...well, he didn't want to think about what Percy meant.

 

“Hi!” Annabeth yelled back. Nico risked peering through his eyelashes.She clomped up the stairs to the deck, grinning, her hair mussed. Tucked under her arm was a tupperware container, a bundle of envelopes and a binder. “How's Nico doing?”

 

Percy wasn't there. Thank every god above,  _ Percy wasn't there _ . 

 

“Nico’s doing great.” Kayla said. “Please tell me you’re not bringing homework.” 

  
They were talking  _ about  _ him.  _ For  _ him. Like he wasn’t a real person.

 

“No, but I had the _be_ _st_ idea. Do either of you want cookies?” Annabeth announced, peeling the lid off the tupperware. That explained the smile, at least. Athena kids seemed to have a habit of finding an idea and running themselves into the ground with it. “Will carries injectible epinephrine, right?” 

 

Nico took a too-sweet cookie. The medications were skewing his sense of taste; everything seemed fake, somehow, waxy as cheap scented candles. 

 

Kayla nodded. Annabeth thumped the binder down on the railing. Flipped through the pages.

  
“I was  _ thinking _ -” she found what she was looking for. “We could do something similar for Nico. Kayla, tell me, do we have an LD 50 for liquid light?”

 

“No, but-”

 

“That basically means no limit to the dosage. The only reason you have to moderate it is-”

 

“Annabeth. Annabeth  _ no. _ I’m not my brother, but even I can see that wouldn’t work.” A lock of Kayla’s hair had worked its way free, falling into her pale blue eyes. “That's like saying... 'Oh, I can bake these cookies at 400 degrees for ten minutes, or I can bake them at  _ 4000 _ degrees for ten seconds. Or 40,000 degrees for ONE second.”

 

“I know this is different, but if you just countered with liquid light instead of blasting him with healing magic- We could make some kind of, of, numerical system, calculate the dosage based on that- maybe it could be more like insulin-” Annabeth scribbled wild additions to her notes. She didn't look like a mad scientist, just a very... _ enthusiastic  _ one.

 

“Annabeth…” Nico realised quickly that he could never be heard over her bright-eyed excitement. He slammed his glass down on the table. Cold tea, sticky with sugar, slopped over his hand. _ Through  _ his hand. All the frustration of the past few days bubbled to the surface. 

 

“Don't _ I  _ get any say in this?”

 

Annabeth stopped her scribbling and stared.

 

“Honestly. You're talking about me like I'm just some experiment. It's  _ my body _ . I can do what I want with it. And I don't want to stick needles in it all the time!” 

 

“It's fine” Kayla said. “None of the Hephaestus kids would have done it anyway.”

 

“I could- I could say it was just  _ my  _ idea.” Annabeth said. “If they thought it had nothing to do with your cabin, they'd be all for it.”

 

Suddenly all the pieces fell into place. This was about Leo. A descendent of Apollo was responsible for the death of a son of Hephaestus. That was enough to start… drama.

 

But he wasn't really. If they'd just  _ stopped Octavian _ \- If they’d gotten that damn  _ statue  _ moved sooner - if - 

 

“Woah, Nico, calm down.” Kayla said. She was watching the vitals machine; some of the numbers had jumped. “Of  _ course  _ you do. We’re open to ideas but that doesn’t mean we’d overstep _ basic human rights _ .” 

 

_ But, Octavian _ . Nico didn’t say.  _ But, Bryce. You don’t know the half of it. _

 

He couldn’t think about it. He wouldn’t allow it because he  _ knew  _ he’d end up breaking down over it. He was going through almost the same thing as Annabeth, really - without anything to fight, you had to actually confront your problems. She’d just found something to occupy her mind. 

 

Really, so had he. 

 

“I want to talk to Will.” Kayla rolled her eyes. 

 

“You can’t talk to Will.” Nico was about to protest, but the look in her eyes told her to stop. “Will isn’t working today. Will is probably  _ sleeping _ .” 

 

“Oh.” Nico realised how stupid the idea had been. Caught himself again, coveting what he couldn’t have. 

 

He didn’t realise  _ why  _ he’d asked until long after Annabeth had left. He’d remember the moment for years; it imprinted on his memory. He was just trying to eat dinner. Minestrone soup, the only thing that didn’t taste disgusting. 

 

And just as he raised the spoon from the bowl, it plummeted through his fingers. And that was when it hit him, in full. The idea of never getting better. 

 

He’d been in bed, still, from a nap - he was so tired. Too tired, maybe, to be a side effect. 

 

Surely he would know. If he was dying. 

 

He couldn’t remember feeling like he  _ wasn’t  _ dying in some way or another. Life force ebbed and flowed; but Nico had been in the red for years now. 

 

He tried to pick up the spoon again. Failed. It was crushing, the clatter of steel on ceramic. Nico wasn’t going to give up that easy; he could manage. He was still  _ whole  _ enough to do it.

 

After six or seven tries, he paused. 

  
  


When he held a hand up to the light, he could see clouds drifting by behind his palm. His bones, semi-silhouetted.

 

Gods, he wanted Will. Overly-peppy, obnoxious, annoying Will, shirly-temple hair and all. Some childish part of him believed that Will could fix this. Maybe. Will fixed everything, even at his own expense.

 

Nico buried his face in his woolen blanket and pointedly refused to cry. He wasn’t upset. Or, he shouldn’t be. He knew for a fact that his friends would forget him soon enough. He didn’t have anything material to leave behind. His sword would probably go to the underworld with him.

 

Maybe he’d get lucky and someone would fight their way down and drag him back. Maybe someone would have the idiotic courage to try an Orpheus-style breakout. 

 

As if. His best hope was Hazel. Hazel, who he’d called  _ Bianca  _ to her face. Hazel, who he’d talked to just as little as everyone else. He’d been possibly the worst brother ever. 

 

And she didn’t know. About…  _ anything _ . 

 

Gods. 

 

At least it would be something of a clean break. He wasn’t the kind of person that Camp Half-Blood would miss. There was a lot that he would never have the chance to finish, but the damage would be minimized.

 

He’d have eternity in the underworld. Everyone did, eventually. 

 

And he wouldn’t have anyone else for...how long? He’d heard of demigods making it into their fifties at least, when there were no wars to kill them early. That’d be a long time to wait. Maybe he should leave a note. 

 

Nico gave up on the soup and stared through the skylight. The weather was too cheery to die in; bright blue sky streaked with high-flying white clouds. It was idyllic. Beautiful, even. 

 

Nico extracted himself from his tangle of blankets and turned to the window. His window faced westward; he’d have a perfect view of the sunset. If he could stay awake for it. After all, it might be his last. 

 

Or maybe he was being melodramatic. Maybe. Maybe everything  _ wouldn’t  _ go to shit. 

 

That wasn’t too likely, though. Everything going to shit was a hallmark of being a demigod. You got a sword, you got some powers, and everything in your life went to shit. It was a simple fact. 

 

The sky remained a stubborn, perfect blue. In the distance, Nico could see the strawberry fields, satyrs in orange shirts dancing through them. He’d never have thought that he’d end up  _ missing  _ camp half blood. The Underworld was his rightful home. Or, the closest thing he had to one.

 

Still, he had a lot he needed to do. His life was a tangle of loose ends that he’d never get the chance to tie.  No more Hazel, no more Jason; no more Percy and Annabeth- he’d never even get to  _ know  _ Will. 

 

He had a distant memory of confession booths and bibles, sunlight streaming through stained-glass windows in a church he used to know the name of. If only it were so simple, as owning up to everything. There was always fallout in the demigod world. No action went unnoticed. 

 

Nico tried to clear his mind, staring in to the vast blue of the sky.

 

He didn’t realise he was falling asleep, not until he woke up to a nightmare. The background bustle of the infirmary at evening was gone.The entire camp seemed dark, early-morning silent. He could see every star in the sky. Harpies swooped, gathered, their heads blocking out the skylight.

 

Nico knew this was inevitable. But it was still startling to see Thanatos in the flesh. Golden light splashed across his face, creating sharp shadows and harsh lines. The god reached out for one, cupped it in his hand, then crushed it in a fist. 

 

“I-” 

 

“Let me guess.” Thanatos cut Nico off. Nico had learnt over time to negotiate with gods. He didn’t look scared. Or, he hoped he didn’t.  “You don’t want to die. You’ll miss that blond boy too much, and you don’t like flying, and you don’t want to go to the underworld because your dad doesn’t understand  _ anything _ .” 

 

All living things feared death, except for death himself. Up against Thanatos, Nico was just another bratty kid - not even the furies spoke to him with such little respect. He couldn’t think of a single effective threat. So he stalled. Tried to think of a plan.

 

“Wait, which blonde boy? Jason?” Nico wrung his shaking hands. “I know lots of blonde boys.” 

 

He wasn’t going to die, he couldn’t- he wasn’t going to do that to himself. He wasn’t going to do that to Will. Breaking a heart like that was as immoral as snuffing out the sun. 

 

Thanatos laughed, low and quiet. 

 

“You know the one. Rumor has it you’re quite smitten.”  He offered a hand. “Maybe he’ll go on a quest to get you back.” 

 

“Do I have to  _ fly  _ to the underworld? I don’t do flight.”  Nico cocooned himself in his blanket. “I  _ really  _ don’t do flight. I don’t care if I’m dead. I can still get airsick.”  

 

“We’ll go over land, then.” 

 

Nico was suddenly aware of his heartbeat, or rather his lack of one. He’d gotten used to it, the pounding in his chest whenever he was scared, the rush of blood in his ears. And it was gone. He wasn’t even breathing. 

 

He was dead.  _ Very _ dead. Point-of-no-return dead. He could feel the separation beginning between his body and soul. 

 

It hurt. He’d always heard dying was peaceful, but it  _ hurt. _ The physicality of it was horrific. There was the pins-and-needles fuzziness of fading, muddled in with the cold depths of shadow travel, and  _ pain _ . Too much pain to process. Like something was shredding away his skin.

 

His eyes stung. He forced his lungs to work again,gasps for air melting into strangled sobs. 

 

Thanatos reeled back slightly in momentary shock, a clear ruffle to the iridescent feathers of his wings.

 

“The longer you wait, the more it will hurt.” There was a condescending softness to his voice, almost pitying. 

 

Nico grit his teeth. Before he could respond ,elegant fingers snaked over Thanatos’s eyes and there was violent pulse of light. 

 

Golden ichor tear-tracked down Thanatos’s face. Droplets splashed to the hardwood floor. 

 

If you’d asked Nico to explain what had happened, later, he wouldn’t have been able to. Everything happened too fast. There was the  _ crunch  _ of breaking bone, and suddenly Thanatos was face-down on the floor, the base of his neck bristling with celestial bronze instruments. Spotted with Ichor, his fingers smudged gold, was Will. He brought a foot down on the bundle of handles, pushing them in further. 

 

“Will.” Nico begged. His time in limbo was taking its toll.The agony was exponential. “Will. Make this  _ stop _ .” 

  
  


Will was at his side in a second, his fingers dipping through pulse-points until he found contact on Nico’s neck. He inhaled sharply. 

 

“Okay. No pulse. That’s fine.” Will shifted his hand, so he was cupping Nico’s face, almost. “I’m about to get myself in a lot of trouble with your father. I hope you don’t mind.” 

 

“What-” Nico began. On the floor, Thanatos raised his head. 

 

“You know what happens if you break that contract, William.” The god’s face was soaked in shimmering ichor. “I’ll just be taking both of you.” 

 

“No you won’t.” Will replied with a cocky calmness that seemed impossible. “Your spinal cord is completely severed. You can’t move anything below the c-seven vertebra. And as long as you stay in that form, you’re stuck.”  

 

He pulled Nico close, almost into a hug, and whispered in his ear. 

 

“Close your eyes.” 

 

The light of the transformation was blinding. The inside of Nico’s eyelids glowed a violent red. There was a tidal-wave of energy surging into him, like he’d been hooked up to electrodes in the shape of a body. Will’s skin burned against his, barely on the threshold of tolerable. 

 

Nico felt a spasm behind his sternum as his heart was wrenched back to beating. His fingers found the soft fabric of Will’s shirt, solid enough to grasp desperate handfuls. He wasn’t letting go, not if he could help it. He’d found a tether to reality, finally. 

 

The light died down, and Nico took the risk of opening his eyes. Will was pulling out of their embrace, his face flushed. Residual energy glowed beneath his skin as he pressed a warm hand to Nico’s chest. Nico could feel the heat through his shirt. Will grinned, unprofessionally emotional. 

 

“A hundred beats per minute. Higher than your normal rate, for obvious reasons.” He intertwined his fingers with Nico’s, moving to feel the weight of his hands. “I wasn’t sure if I could still do that.” 

 

“What  _ was  _ that?” Nico felt like there was lightning in his blood,  overwhelming  _ energy _ . His fingers tapped the bedspread. His heart was racing. 

 

“Illegal.” Thanatos had reformed his humanoid body. “ _ Highly  _ illegal. In  _ every sense _ .” 

 

“I never signed anything.”  Will didn’t let go of Nico’s hands. “And you can’t take a life before it ends. Nico’s mine, for now at least.”  

 

Thanatos glared through glowing eyes. 

 

“You  _ broke _ your  _ oath _ .” He hissed. Nico toyed with Will’s fingers, before the penny dropped. “You swore on the styx.”

 

“You  _ didn’t. _ ” He whispered, and Will nodded. 

 

“Maybe I did.” Will stood, disentangling their hands, and faced the god. “But whatever the punishment is, it’s worth it. I’m ready. No god has the power to make me regret this.” 

 

Thanatos clenched a fist, then raised his hand and slapped Will across the face. 

 

They watched the god vanish. 

 

“You just got bitch-slapped by a god.” Somewhere in the mess of magic and adrenaline, Nico had lost his impulse control.    
  


“Indeed I did.” Will said.    
  


“What  _ oath _ did  _ you  _ break? You of all people? What do you have to make  _ oaths _ about?” 

 

“Well that’s rude.” Will sat down on the edge of Nico’s bed, sporting an exhausted half-smile. “Just because I rarely leave camp and have the lowest-stakes life a demigod possibly can, doesn’t mean I can’t swear on the styx from time to time.” 

 

“You broke an oath on the styx. I’m having a hard time comprehending that.” Nico said. 

 

“Hi, having a hard time comprehending that. I’m Will.” Clearly, Will had inherited his father’s terrible sense of humor. In the haze of adrenaline and afterglow, Nico almost laughed.

 

He wondered why he was so infatuated. 

 

“No, but,  _ seriously. _ ” He could barely cobble sentences together, with Will’s eyes on him. “You’re so utterly and completely fucked. Why would you do that?” 

 

“Well, you’re healed now. That’s the important thing.” Will said. “Both of us are okay. I mean, for now.” 

 

“Why wouldn’t  _ you  _ be okay?” Nico asked. He couldn’t quite think straight. He’d been  _ dead _ .

 

“It takes a lot of power to bring someone back to life.” Will shrugged. “I had to borrow some from that transformation. No big deal.” 

 

“I’m sorry, you  _ what _ ?”

 

“Borrowed power. You know, light, energy... kinda like photosynthesis?” Will faltered. It was  _ adorable _ .

 

“You _ stole power  _ from a god?” Nico was absolutely dumbfounded. Will was absolutely doomed.

 

“Not  _ stole _ , exactly…”  

 

“You  _ idiot _ .” Nico said softly.

 

“Hey, be happy, you can leave in the morning.” Will said. “Don’t worry about me. Lots of people anger the gods.”

 

Nico entertained a possibility. 

 

Maybe, just maybe, it had been for him. Someone so reckless wouldn’t care how twisted their friends were. Will’s unflinching positivity was something of a miracle. 

  
It was horrible, what he’d have to go through. 


	4. How to get away with the exact opposite of murder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's finally over! :D You don't have to deal with my weird spacing anymore!

Will didn’t really feel selfish. Not  _ exactly _ . All he had to do was look at it in a positive light.    
  


He’d die, obviously. And worse. But his skills were transferrable. It was in the contract. When he died- which would probably be very soon- the power he had would go to the next oldest sibling. Kayla would be  _ fine. _

 

Probably.

 

Will ran a hand through his hair. His fingers caught in the curls. 

 

He’d sequestered himself in the Apollo cabin to pick through the fine print of his summons. Hermes had delivered it in person. It was meant to be some kind of honour, but Will had never been looked at with such insulting  _ pity _ before. A god had descended from Olympus to give him a letter and the look make-a-wish kids got. 

 

It had certainly been an...interesting night. 

 

The ‘summons’- more of a demand, really- felt expensive to the touch. It was printed on thick, cream-coloured paper, complete with a pretentious letterhead. His parents had to attend, which meant he’d probably be grounded in the afterlife. The contract hadn’t been his to sign. He was a minor. Oaths had been made  _ about  _ and  _ for  _ and  _ on behalf  _ of him. For the good of godly politics and everyone else involved.

 

He only had one problem with the situation. One tiny little personal annoyance. 

 

Nico. 

 

Will knew he was just waxing stress-poetic, but Nico couldn’t be succinctly described without clichés. Raven hair and onyx eyes that caught the stars. The boy made him think in song lyrics and bad poetry. It wasn’t  _ fair _ . Nico was  _ impossible _ , especially now. With colour in his cheeks and that  _ unbearable  _ smile, he was more attractive than the universe should allow. If genetics was a lottery, Nico di Angelo had won the jackpot. 

 

And Will barely knew him. Nico had the air of bad-boy mystery that girls their age went mad for, and boys their age were  _ seriously annoyed by _ . Will was the type of extroverted introverts hated. Nico’s personality clashed completely with his. And it was  _ amazing _ .

 

He couldn’t focus on legal-babble with the  _ Nico  _ issue unresolved. If they could just  _ talk,  _ just for an hour, he’d be fine. If he could just get a concrete  _ no _ . A rejection. Then he could die… not  _ happy,  _ per se, but  _ satisfied.  _ It would be better than spending eternity wondering. Then he could deal with everything with a clear mind. 

 

Their total lack of a promising relationship was why he didn’t expect Nico  _ at his door _ . 

 

It took him a second to process what was happening. The son of Hades was standing on his doorstep with a binder under his arm and a look of harsh determination on his face. There was something vaguely military in his stance; he’d tucked in his camp shirt and  _ finally  _ combed his hair. The overcast sky seemed to glow behind him. 

 

“Good morning.” Nico’s voice was cool with officality. “I’m here to save your life.”  

 

“Um. Sure.”  Will told himself that he was completely calm, and prepared, and professional. Maybe if he believed hard enough that he  _ wasn’t _ an awkward blushing mess, he wouldn’t be. Like the placebo effect without an actual placebo. 

 

“Great. Everyone is on your side.” Nico explained as they walked. “Even  _ Drew _ .” 

 

Will trailed awkwardly after Nico to the dining pavilion, where they met what could only be called an  _ assembly.  _ Half of the Athena cabin had clustered, set up a circuit of paperwork and books. Jason Grace was in the middle of what seemed to be at least two phone conversations at once, separately texting and yelling into a bluetooth earpiece. Annabeth Chase lept to her feet and walked over. 

  
“Will. Do you know how long Nico was dead for? Clinically?” Will wasn’t sure how exactly he was guided to the table, but soon enough Annabeth had him at her mercy with a very journalistic  notepad.    
  
“That’s...a tricky question.” Will answered. He’d never felt comfortable as the centre of attention, and the procedure been  _ complicated _ . “Would you like a writeup of what I did? Exactly? Because I could do that. He wasn’t  _ technically _ braindead at any point. Not completely.” 

 

Annabeth broke face for a moment and grinned.

  
“That’s great.” She said, taking note. “Can I borrow your summons letter? I’m borrowing the summons letter. Is Drew around? Find Drew.” 

 

Will didn’t need to find Drew, because Drew had apparently joined the  _ William Solace legal protection _ squad. She clacked around the table in her pink heels and refused to let him get a word in edgewise. 

 

“Okay, so. We have the Olympians.” She scattered a pack of cards, the designs vaguely familiar. She rummaged through her purse, and pulled out a blunted lipstick.“You’re not in mythomagic so you can be the lipstick. I’ll also be using you to draw. Sorry.” 

 

Drew traced a complicated map of lines and labels between the Olympian cards. 

 

“So, your dad’s in trouble. For Octavian. That’s strike against you,  _ but _ , my mother is on your side for obvious reasons. Jason’s trying to...  _ talk _ to Zeus, who is super annoyed at your dad, but also loves a good case. And you have the advantage of the whole Hades thing. You were what, five the last time you were up there? Six? That’s projected an image for  _ sure _ . I know for a fact Hera and Hestia just  _ loved  _ you. Are you following?” 

 

“Sort of?” someone slid a plate of waffles and an itinerary across the table to Will. "And I was four."  

 

Drew grinned, shark-like. 

 

"Four? That's  _ fantastic. _ You haven’t been attached to any quests, have you? Just war stuff?”

 

Will shook his head.    
  
“Nope.” His waffles  _ appeared  _ to be soaked with syrup and...butter? “Is this margarine?” 

 

“Earth balance.” Drew answered. “Right. You’ve got a great life story. You’re something of a savant, really. All you want to do is save lives. And you’re rather naive, having grown up in camp, so of course…” 

 

Her eyes swooped to Nico, who was comparing physical notes with Annabeth. She gestured, smiling, with her pen. 

 

“What?” Will spent what felt like a little too long looking. “How is Nico going to help?” 

  
“Don’t you get it?  _ Of course  _ you would act out of love. _ Obviously _ .” Drew rolled her eyes, like Will’d said something idiotic. “And  _ besides _ , who knows what Nico might do if you die. We might have a shakespeare situation on our hands. And nobody wants _ that _ . He’d probably throw himself in to the lethe to get back at his father.” 

 

“I- what?” Will took an embarrassingly long time to catch on. “Oh, no. I’m not, um,  _ we  _ aren’t like that. Well. He’s not.I mean- I’m not either -” 

 

Drew laughed her trademark mean-girl laugh. 

 

“Will, sweetie, we can all see it.” She connected lines to Aphrodite, Hera and Hestia. “And it’s a  _ huge  _ advantage. Nobody wants to separate the star-crossed. And you can get married, now. You wanted to save his life so you could spend it with him. It’s just such a  _ cute  _ story." 

 

" But… I broke the contract.” Will desperately tried to re-route the conversation. "If we're going to have a legal battle, shouldn't we focus on the contract?" 

 

“There’s probably a loophole. But I’m not here to talk about  _ loopholes _ . I’m here to talk about hierarchy and psychology, and history.” Drew picked out a darker shade of pink lipstick. “In summary. If you can get my mom on your side, you’ve got Ares on your side so we don’t have to worry about him. But your big advantage is Athena. And Zeus favours his daughters.” 

 

“Wait, wait.” Will said. The truth of the situation was slowly sinking in. “You’re telling me to just...  _ manipulate _ my way through this? You want me to to use  _ social psychology  _ on the  _ Olympians _ ?” 

 

Drew raised an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth tugging back in contempt. 

 

“And they told me you had a one-forty IQ.” She sighed. “Look, you  _ know  _ the stories. It’s like a high school clique. You can’t just go in without knowing the dynamics.” 

 

“Right.” Will went back to his waffles. Now, apparently, was not the time for morals. The whole thing made his skin crawl. 

 

“ _ Will! _ ” Annabeth shouted through cupped hands. “Have you told your mom?” 

 

“You tell her! We’re  _ busy _ over here!” Drew shouted back. She scowled at the back of Annabeth’s head. “ _ Honestly _ . Athena kids.  _ Ugh _ . Okay, Will. I’m going to be honest with you, we’ve got a love-and-war situation on our hands here.” 

 

Will gestured with his fork for her to continue. If she was saying what he thought she was... Well, Will was going to die. He was going to die trying to explain his stupid crush to the  _ Gods _ . What a way to go. 

 

Drew seemed to pick up on his doubt. She pursed her lips, sighed, tossed her hair. Dropped her voice to a whisper. 

 

“Look, honey, don’t worry.” She said. “It worked for Orpheus. Just don’t fuck up. Nico’s on your side.  _ This will go well _ .” 

 

“If you think so.” Will shrugged. He was almost disagreeing on purpose, now. It would make everything easier to accept, if he just gave up. 

 

“ _ Will _ .” Drew said. Her tone embodied their age gap, his relative inexperience with life, an attempt to comfort and a touch of scorn. The word was like a charmspeak ‘everything’ burrito- language stuffed to bursting with a million meanings. 

 

The magic worked its way inside Will’s head, and the next hour and a half played like a videogame. Will watched his hands write up the exact procedure of saving Nico. The act of keeping those last few neurons firing; holding off on restarting his heart. It was as distant as pressing buttons for a response on screen. Charmspeak was awful. It stole his agency. Numbed the anxiety.

 

The effect didn’t get a chance to fade. He was  _ snapped _ out of it by his mother’s voice.  

 

Nico Di Angelo was standing in front of the fine mist of an iris message, trying futilely to argue with Will’s mom. 

 

Arguing with Aki Solace was like going to war with the sea. 

 

“Oh no.” Will dropped his pen and all but  _ ran  _ over. He was not going to leave Nico at the mercy of his mom. 

 

“Will.” His mother wasn’t angry; she was  _ pleading _ . “What the hell have you done now?”    
  


“With all do respect, ma’am-” Nico said. He stood almost at attention, his head level with Will’s shoulders. “Your son  _ saved my life _ .” 

  
“And doomed his own.” Will’s mother frowned. She was peeling off rubber gloves, unsnapping a lab coat. She’d done this before, Will knew. She was used to emergencies.“Goth kid. You understand this more than I do. We can get him out of this, right? There’s got to be  _ something _ .” 

 

“I’m not going to give you false hope.”  Nico said. “It’s unlikely that he’ll be allowed to live. But we’re doing everything we can.” 

 

There was a horrible  _ fairness  _ to his words. A harsh, dark, truth. 

 

He sounded just like his father. 

 

“Everything you-” Will’s mom inhaled sharply, slowly let out the breath. Calming herself. She’d done that since he was little. “Everything you can. So probably not enough.”  

 

“Well…” Will began. His mother made sudden eye contact. 

 

“Stay where you are, sunshine.” She said. “I’ll meet you at the empire state building. I love you.” 

 

Will couldn’t manage the  _ love you too  _ fast enough. Not before his mother was out of view. 

 

Nico looked up at him, all dark eyes and half-suggested smile. He’d got his sword back; his fingers were drumming on the hilt.  

 

“Sunshine?” He asked. 

 

“That’s not good.” Will slipped back in to an old habit; his nails were too short to bite, so he chewed the skin around them. “My mom only calls me that when she thinks I’m dying.” 

 

“Oh.” Nico said. “Well… I can’t say you won’t die. But I don’t want you to.” 

  
The  _ I  _ got to Will. Nobody could say they  _ wanted  _ another person to die, but  _ I don’t want  _ was personal. 

 

“I don’t mind dying.” Will checklisted through his reasons- everybody would be fine. Kayla could manage. It was worth it, to save a significantly more significant life. “Well, I do  _ mind _ , but, like, I won’t hold it against you or anything. Not that I would. I never would.” 

 

He really, really missed the caring role. The florence-nightingale nonsense had been so much better than constantly tripping over his words and wondering why he was even trying. 

 

“Did I ever thank you?” Nico asked. “This is me thanking you. I’d get you a fruit basket or something but there’s probably not enough time.” 

 

“I was just doing my job.”

 

“Your  _ job _ doesn’t extend to breaking oaths on the styx.” Nico protested. “Actually, you didn’t have a job when the oath was made. And the contract is in your  _ mother’s  _ name. So I don’t get why the oath was in yours.” 

 

“I don’t know. It was a long time ago.”  Will could  _ not  _ deal with this. Having a casual conversation with Nico was worse than talking to a god. Especially now. Time was running out, and tension running high. He didn’t want to die with secrets. 

 

“That’s what makes it so…  _ unjust _ .” Nico said. “In both legal systems, too. You were  _ four. _ It’s not like you were a threat.” 

 

“It’s just a tangled ball of red tape and drama.” Will could  _ feel  _ his heartbeat in his chest. “But you have to admit it makes sense. I’m not a threat. I’m just a healer. But I’m a good enough healer to be a  _ hassle _ .” 

 

Nico all but  _ glared _ at him. Hairline cracks began to spread around his feet. 

 

“You are not a  _ hassle _ .” Nico snapped. Will could have sworn the air was colder. “Do you think any of this would be happening if you were just some  _ inconvenience _ ? Would half the camp be trying to get you out of this if it were a  _ hassle _ ?”    
  
“No, um, I just mean that…” Nico was certainly back to full power; Will could feel it in the air, heavy as lead. He breathed deep. “You know. I’m not a big three kid. There are no prophecies about me or anything. My greatest talent is kissing things better.” 

  
Nico was clearly about to answer; but he was stopped by Annabeth. She tapped his shoulder to catch his attention, apologized for ‘Interrupting’, and swept him off to talk of More Important Things. Annabeth glanced back at him a couple times, her hair beginning to escape from its very severe bun. 

 

It took almost the rest of the day to prepare for the  _ demand  _ for Will to be on Olympus. Drew insisted he dress well, Annabeth that he be thoroughly briefed. Some of his siblings and some of the Hermes kids snuck out in to the city to buy cupcakes. They wanted to do something ‘nice’. Nowhere sold  _ congratulations-on-your-upcoming-death-at-the-hands-of-enraged-gods _ cards.  

 

Nico had insisted on coming with him. Mostly because of the zombie chauffer thing, which Will had known nothing about. 

 

Stepping out of the car near the empire state building was one of the most terrifying things Will had ever done. This was quickly topped by stepping in to the lobby. 

 

The minute his uncomfortable dress shoe hit the floor, Will saw his mother. She was half-running through the crowd, using elbows where need be. Nico stepped awkwardly out of the way as she caught Will in a collision of a hug. 

 

She smelled faintly of lavender water and labs, as always. The smell of luria broth clung for hours after she left work, and no amount of incense seemed to smother it. 

 

“ _ Will _ . Oh god. They won’t let me up with you. I’ve got to go by some other, nonsensical transport system.” She smiled, eyes watery. “Who knew the Gods would make their visitors take the stairs?” 

 

Will just clung tighter, trying his absolute best not to cry. 

 

“I’m going to miss you.” He couldn’t cram everything he wanted to say into the time they had. Not without giving in to the stress. He could break down later. “I’m going to miss you more than anyone.” 

 

“Don’t worry, sunshine.”  The nickname stung. He’d never hear it again. “I’m sure you’ll make it.” 

 

He couldn’t work up the courage to let go until he saw Nico frantically waving from near the elevator. 

 

They didn’t say goodbye. That was one thing he’d gotten from the mortal side. Goodbyes meant giving up. 

 

The elevator turned out to be unnecessarily ornate. Will focused on the ornateness, instead of anything he should have been actually thinking about. There was gold around the buttons, behind the mist. Gold around what was probably a CCTV camera. He wasn’t going to give himself up to anxiety about his impending doom.  

 

“You know…” Nico said. “I think we could get you out of this. Maybe.” 

 

“What?” Will didn’t need uncertainty. He didn’t need to worry about possibilities. He had a pocketful of index cards and the ultimate knowledge that the endeavour would fail. 

 

The elevator reached the hundredth floor, and passed it.  

 

“My dad doesn’t  _ hate  _ you.” Nico continued. Will was losing his train of thought in the smooth carefulness of Nico’s voice. “You,well, you’ll probably not be tortured. You _ deserve  _ Elysium. Maybe if we’re lucky… you might get to live.” 

 

“That’s really… sweet of you Nico, but I’m okay with dying.” 

 

Will was not okay with dying, not in the slightest. He didn’t want to  _ exist _ without the people in his life. The underworld would be bad enough, without knowing so many people to leave behind. 

 

They reached the two-hundredth floor. 

 

“But you don’t  _ have  _ to be.” Nico insisted. “You _ shouldn’t  _ be.”   

 

“I know, I know, I just-” Will sighed. “It makes it easier to cope.” 

 

“Giving in is pretty selfish.” Nico didn’t sound angry. Just… distressed. “People  _ depend _ on you.” 

 

Floor three-hundred ticked past. 

 

“People can depend on Kayla.” Will said. “She’s trained as my deputy. We lose enough counselors to prepare. Transfer of ability is  _ in the contract _ .” 

  
“Will you’re not…  _ getting _ it.” Nico was starting to talk with his hands; as if flailing would make Will understand. “People need  _ you  _ specifically. Your… I don’t know. Aura? Is important.” 

  
“Aura?” Will could feel his hands starting to shake. He stared at the golden numbers as four hundred went by, wondered briefly if there were actually all those floors between 102 and 600. Wished he could find out. 

 

“Personality, then. I don’t know. I’m trying to  _ help _ . Camp half blood  _ needs  _ you.” Nico took a deep, shaky breath. “ _ Fuck  _ this. You’re the reason I’m alive.  _ I  _ need you.” 

 

Will was about to ask for clarification, but he found himself being, to his great surprise, kissed. 

 

The world exploded. Angels should have been singing; there should have been fanfare, fireworks. 

 

Nico Di Angelo was not a good kisser. He was too delicate with the act; like he was afraid. This kiss was clearly his first. 

 

Will kissed back without question. This miracle of a kiss would be his last.  

 

From there on out, it was a matter of hands falling in to place and desperation. Will tried to imprint the moment on his memory; the gentle brushing of lips, the softness of Nico’s hair where it brushed his hand. The feeling that all his dreams had come true. 

 

The  _ ding _ of the doors as they reached Olympus was the only thing that broke them apart. 

“I’m sorry!” Nico blurted as they stepped out of the elevator. He was blushing to the roots of his hair. “I, I, just, wanted to  _ try _ . You’re probably disgusted. I’m sorry.” 

 

Will couldn’t help but stare for a moment. Nico Di Angelo,  _ actual  _ child of an  _ actual  _ big three god,  _ actual  _ necromancer and all around amazing miracle person, was apologising. For kissing  _ him _ . 

 

“I’m disgusted that you think you should be saying sorry.” He said. He wanted nothing in the world more than more  _ time _ . If only he’d  _ said  _ something. He’d had so many  _ chances _ ! “That was  _ completely  _ mutual. Dang it, why didn’t you do that  _ sooner _ ? Why didn’t  _ I  _ do that sooner?”

“We can...talk, later.” Nico suggested. He was smiling, his eyes damp but crinkling at the edges. Will hadn’t seen him smile before; the expression looked completely involuntary.  

 

“ _ If _ there’s a later.” Will was struggling to cope. This was the best, and absolute, awfully  _ worst  _ day of his life. And he wouldn’t get to surpass either extreme.  

 

“Yeah.” Nico said. “If there’s a later. Which there will be.” 

  
It seemed like luck alone that he was right.


End file.
